Sportsboats in St Petersburg

The St Petersburg Sailing Union (SPSU), the Russian Offshore Race Association and the Offshore Racing Congress (ORC) are pleased to announce the 2010 ORC Sportboat European Championship has published its Notice of Race and is ready to accept entries. The event will be held over 3-10 July 2010 in St. Petersburg, with six days of racing scheduled over 5-10 July, with all shoreside activities being held at the Hercules Yacht Club.

“We’re very excited to have this opportunity to attract some of the best sailors in Europe to our event,” said Natalia Fedorova, Vice-President of SPSU. “We have a fantastic sailing area, great facilities, and the history and culture of St. Petersburg is world-class. For this reason we hope many teams will bring not just themselves but their families to our wonderful city.”

Boat types which are eligible to compete in the ORC Sportboat class are defined in the ORC “Green Book” of Championship rules, but include the following criteria:
- Length (LOA) 6.0 – 9.0 m
- Displacement (DSPM) <2000 kg
- DSPM/LOA^3 (DLR) < 4.50
- 50% crew must be ISAF Group 1 sailors

Typical boat types which qualify as ORC Sportboats include popular boats in western Europe such as the Laser SB3, Elliott 6M, Melges 24, Beneteau 25, GP26, and J/80, and such popular boats in Russia and eastern Europe as the Santer 760, Алекстар 767, Julia 3, Эльф, Эльф-800, Ветер-2 (О-800), Ракета-1 (О-800), Ветер-Э (О-800), and the Sky Fly (O-800). For teams unable to bring their own boat to the event, organisers at SPSU are making Santer 760s available for charter.

These and other sportboats have become very popular in the last decade or so for their relatively low cost, high-speed style of performance and the skill and athleticism necessary to race these boats. And while there are many types of sportboats sailing, it’s rare to have the opportunity to race them against each other in such a high-level event. Using the power of the ORC handicap system to equalize these disparate boat types, the ORC Sportboat European Championship therefore provides a valuable opportunity to have teams from many different classes come together and prove to each other who is the fastest and who is the best.

“We have already had many inquiries about this regatta,” says Fedorova, “and hope to attract anywhere from 50-70 teams from all around the Baltic region and beyond.”

For more information and application for entry to the 2010 ORC Sportboat European Championship, visit the event website here.